Customer Reviews

Reclaiming the Church

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I am a great admirer of John Cobb, Jr. I chose this book as an optional reading for a Doctor of Ministry class at the seminary where I teach. As one who teaches approaches to theological reflection, I totally concur with John Cobb that members of local congregations must regain their role in theologizing and not leave that role only to professional theologians and clergy.

Recently I was sent a copy of John Cobb's book by Trip Fuller of "Transforming Theology Blog" fame. Cobb, a united methodist, shares some of his concerns the growing "sickness" of mainstream and oldline denominational churches. Having read a few books of this nature, (e.g The Courage to be Protestant - David Wells & The myth of a Christian nation - Greg Boyd), I had very low expectations for this book.

The book is a short one. Five chapters and 110 pages.
For Cobb, the biggest symptom of the problem is the radical shift of Christianity from America and Europe to South America and Africa. Christianity is flourishing in the third world, and "decaying" in the 1st world. The Church has not responded to cultural trends with a thoroughly Christian worldview. So far so good, but from then on it all seems to go down hill.

Cobb states that "Our task...is not to adapt ourselves to what is going on in the society around us, but to be faithful to Jesus Christ" (page 40). While I agree, Cobb does little to tell us how to be faithful to Jesus Christ when the culture changes. He says similar things about femmenism, "Renewal views femmenist ideas from a biblical perspective" (page 50). What exactly is a biblical perspective, and how is it formed? He doesn't go far enough with his ideas. "Although sola scriptura exaggerates, it rightly points to the insistence on justifying each decision from the Bible in a relatively direct way" (page 52). Cobb spends no time explaining why Sola Scriptura is an exaggeration, nor does he explain why it is also "right".

"Movements flourish when their members are passionately committed. Christianity has flourished when Christians have been convinced that their faith is of supreme importance to them individually and collectively and also for the world." (page 2). Cobb opens with this statementt but ironically does not take his own ideas far enough. How on earth does the Bible relate to renewal? What is the place of sound doctrine? What is a Christian worldview? What is a biblical perspective on culture? What am I supposed to do as a Christian?

But the most bizarre of his statements is this one "...no one is in a position to make universalitic statements. Our Christian concern is to live out our own world of meanings, not to impose them on anyone else...Jews cannot be accused of rejecting the one who was to be their saviour and the saviour of the whole world. Judaism and Christianity are simply different systems of meaning." (page 62) In other words, Judaism and Christianity are just simply different expressions of the same truth. Sadly more than 1/3 of Americans think this way. George Barna's research confirms that most Americans believe the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon and three expressions of the same truth. Even more disturbing is this quote :"Jesus is Lord...clearly Lord is relational term and only for those who follow Jesus is he actually Lord." (page 63) I could not believe what I was reading. For all his talk about renewal and transformation he seems to have wholly swallowed post-modern relativity. As a Christian I know Jesus is Lord whether someone follows him or not. He's not just my Lord, He is Lord of the whole world. The world was made by him, through him and for him. At no point is the Lordship of Jesus so intensely personalised like Cobb would have us believe.

The book is fraught with problems and from then on he lost me. If you want to transform culture, and reclaim your church from it, then don't buy this book. Spend time in Scripture and meditate on the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He is Lord of the world, He is the King of Kings, and he calls everyone everywhere to submit to his rule. If we don't acknowledge that as Christians we have nothing to offer the world. What the Church needs is a generation of believers who will faithfully proclaim the Lorship of Jesus Christ to the world in fresh and new ways without compromising on Biblical Truth. My low expectations of this book were confirmed and I couldn't in good faith reccommend it to anyone.